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Nicholas Poulios's avatar

Some rooms are very strange CY, they look normal at first the things go really weird ..particularly in a foreign country:

The Hotel Room And The Emperor

The candle dribbled small globules of wax on its sides and

was already half burnt. I figured another two hours of light

at most to do my work . These black outs in the city were a

nuisance but at least this time I was prepared. The Hotel

had not changed much since my last year’s assignment.

I do not know why, perhaps a coincidence that I ended

booking the same room number nine on the ninth floor

which was available. Maybe, I desire predictability and I

feel comfortable being alone in this city of twenty nine

million.

Early today, there was not a cloud in the sky. A good

opportunity. I sat by the Bund promenade and pulled out

my sketch book and water color pans from my shoulder

back pack and started to sketch. It was a good feeling and I

could sense my jet lag dissipating. I made some progress

and was happy at my output. I captured new found feelings

about Shanghai and the distant 623 meter futuristic tower,

the pearl TV tower and those distinctive pink spheres.

With all those flitting reflections of the day, the candle

progressed more down to its base. I quickly wanted to

finesse my sketch and to travel to a new location.

The room fell into total silence as I mixed the colours. I

could hear my breathing as I dabbed my brush into a red

pan to make some orange with the yellow for that skyline I

remember seeing at midday. Outside the distant traffic had

become subdued to a feint murmur, I heard some

newspapers rustling in the wind. There was a me-ow, then

nothing.

I try to recall if I ever noticed intense silence of this room

before. As far as I could remember the city was always

bustling with commotion and one acclimatized to the city

sounds easily after a few days.

I lifted my brush to fill in the skyline but felt a restraining

force and could put my brush tip to paper. Try as I may ,

something was blocking my attempts to add colour. I could

not move my hand. What happened next the my sketchbook

flipped over to a new page. This seemed very weird as I

was not contemplating on doing a new sketch tonight, let

alone one of emperor Qin Shi Huang and his forbidden

terracotta Army tomb as I quickly found out.

I looked around the room the curtains were drawn, I did

not remember doing drawing then aside this morning I

always let the light in. The next thing that happened was

that on the blank page a feint outline portrait of the emperor

emerged as if developing in photographic dish. Was I to

draw the emperor? and for what purpose?

The tomb remained excavated in the Lintong District,

Xi'an, Shaanxi and was not on my itinerary. There was even

some talk of a curse amongst archaeologists who too scared

to excavate further.

I watched in astonishment as my hand finished the portrait.

I stared at the emperor’s eyes and asked what do you want

from me? I knew now this is not a normal room and that my

life would change forever if I was not careful. Then I

thought of flying back to Melbourne on the first flight out

tomorrow morning. I had to get out fast, I was sure I would

encounter more wandering spirits with their unresolved

issues that I did not want any part of.

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Nicholas Poulios's avatar

Thanks for reading my comments.

I mentioned your writing CY to some friends ( most are creatives ) to spread the word around.

I was surprised to what they said and what is going on.

Some said they want to give up and do something else --bread and butter type work, nothing tech fancy with a short hyped up life.

They told me: some have not had work for 4 months or more; some have resorted to cutting unnecessary costs; others have moved back to their parents home rather wait for things to turn around; some even have 3 menial jobs to manage their cost of living.

I asked can they explain what is going on ? they all mentioned Trumps Beautiful tariffs will produce a recession globally, and disrupt the financial system and World trade. Shelves are empty at super markets and prices have sky rocketed.

They said it is best option is to batten the hatches -- or perhaps re-invent themselves if they can as the world has changed.

All I can say, is I was at a loss for words ... I hope they are wrong !

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Nicholas Poulios's avatar

Far reaching tremendous thoughts in an an irresistible story that triggered memories of a book.

A century ago, I read the Walter Tevis book: steps to the rising sun. Though I do not recall the story entirely, I do remember the singing grass of the planet Belson -- when the sun sets at dusk during violet light. The narrator fled a resource depleted Earth illegally ( space flight was prohibited). One tired evening lying on the grass, the grass sang at that hour and the leaves touched his body and slowly as it sang, the leaves were detoxing his body ... this what I recall, I will have to find it in the garage and reread again.

Caves, songs, superposition, Klein bottles you story remarkably has it all. I think there are Klein Cities; you can't say CY you are from San dong, or Lisbon; or England or Australia or Tahiti. Why ? because you are a superpositioner and the world is lucky to have you in our presence revealing stories that are strange and yet wonderful. Who are you really Cy ?

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